Ramsey Library Resource Guide


African American Studies

Web Resources

 

Academic/Research

Directories

Slave History

News/Entertainment

Organizations

Journal Articles

 

 

 

 

Academic/Research/Museums Sites

Comprehensive Sites

Oxford African American Studies Center.  Contains 7,500 articles from core reference works, primary sources, photographs, maps and charts and tables.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Guide to Black History
Examines nearly 400 years of history and includes numerous links to other sites. Also includes audio and video clips.


The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture
This exhibit presents four areas of the Library of Congress African-American Mosaic exhibit: Colonization, Abolition, Migrations, and the WPA. More detail of the exhibit is available in the printed publication available in Ramsey Library.

The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
This site brings rare and unique items from the Library of Congress'  incomparable African American collections to the National Digital Library. "The presentation is not only a highlight of what is on view in this major black history exhibition, but also a glimpse into the Library's vast African American collection. Both include a wide array of important and rare books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings."

African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection
"The Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love."

Africans In America
A major collection of images, documents, stories, biographies, and commentaries on American's journey through slavery.  This is a companion site to the Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) documentary, Africans in America.

Afro-American: The Black History Museum
Presents interactive exhibits to some major events and people in black history.

American Memory Historical Collections
A major component of the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program, this site includes multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library's Americana collections. Browse the African American history collection.

The Black Highlanders Collection (Ramsey Library Special Collection)
Collection Description: "Although not a "comprehensive" history of African-American life in Asheville, N. C., this collection contains important institutional and biographical materials from the late nineteenth century until 1972."

Documenting the American South (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Excellent site. Provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American History.

Guide to African American Documentary Resources in North Carolina
North Carolina African American Archives Group, School of Library and Information Science, North Carolina Central University.

The King Center
The King Center is the official, living memorial dedicated to the advancement of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The King Library and Archives contains important records that document the impact of the civil rights movement.

National Civil Rights Museum.
Located in the Lorraine Motel, scene of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, this museum was designed to help visitors better understand the history and lessons of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Our Shared History
This National Parks Service (NPS) page provides links to online tours of NPS sites dedicated to the preservation of African American heritage, to resources about and maps of the Underground Railroad, and to other tours of the Historic South. It also features links to articles and books.

Recent Acquisitions in African-American History & Literature
Original materials collected by the University of Virginia Library Special Collections Department.

Resources in Black Studies
Provides links to sites for current and historical information about people of African descent in the United States,  Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a national research library devoted to collecting, preserving and providing access to resources documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world. This page provides links to digital visual resources of African Americans in the 19th century and to major online exhibitions. This site also has  links to selected Internet resources on Africa and the African Diaspora.

The South Asheville Colored Cemetery, 1840-1943 (Ramsey Library Special Collection)
Information and documentation on Asheville's early African-American burial ground.

UNCA Ramsey Library Special Collections
Finding aids for manuscripts, oral histories, photographs, archives, and other information related to African Americans  in Western North Carolina.

Valley of the Shadow
Primary resources for the Civil War, including official records, letters and diaries, maps, images, and soldiers' dossiers. University of Virginia Center for Digital History.

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Directories and Searchable Sites

AfricaBib.org
Two searchable databases:

  • Africa Women's Bibliographic Database, over 19,000 citations, 1986 to the present, for books, articles, government documents, and other recources.
  • Africana Periodical Literature Bibliographic Database, over 26,000 articles from 200 international journals in English and other languages.

Black Facts Online
Search for black history facts for any day of the year or search for facts by keyword.

Roadmap to African American  and Diversity Resources 
Browse resources arranged by the Library of Congress classification system.  Extensive links to both primary and secondary resources.

Sonja Haynes Stone Center Library for Black Culture and History Guide to the Web (UNC-Chapel Hill)
A searchable guide to over 600 Web sites that also includes a browsable subject guide. Click on the Center home page for information about the Center's exhibits and lecture series.

Voice of the Shuttle - Minority Studies
Extensive links to African American resources in the humanities.

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Slave History

American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography (via NC LIVE; UNCA users only)
Search slave narratives collected from 17 states during the 1930's by the WPA. See also the Born in Slavery site from the Library of Congress

Amistad Links
A comprehensive listing of links to sitesabout the history of the AMISTAD, the AMISTAD incident, and its legacy.

Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora
A digitalized research facility that focuses on the movement of Africans to various parts of the world, particularly the Americas and the Islamic lands of North Africa and the Middle East. Affiliated with the UNESCO "Slave Route" Project, the Centre provides links to numerous sites of interest to scholars of the Diaspora.

North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920
"Available here for the first time will be all the narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides, pamphlets, or book form in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of former slaves published in English before 1920." (Introduction)

Remembering Slavery
Former slaves tell their story. Interviews recorded in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Slave Trade Archives Project
The purpose of this project created by UNESCO is to preserve primary documents concerning the transatlantic slave.  Access to electronic documents is provided by links to the archives of institutions participating in the project.

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Current News\Entertainment

Africana.com
Comprehensive gateway to the black world.

African American World (PBS)
Browse by category (arts, living, history, politics, people, video) or search for a specific person.  Includes a special site for kids.

African American Web Connection
Provides links to sites that discuss many areas of African American culture and history. Includes special pages for kids.

Organizations

Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Established in 1915 by Carter G. Woodson, this organization founded Black History Month. Publishes the Journal of African American History (formerly the Journal of Negro History) and the Bulletin of Black History.

NAACP
The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is the oldest, largest and strongest civil rights organization in the United States. Provides links to other civil rights organizations.

National Urban League
The League is a nonprofit, community-based organization headquartered in New York City, with affiliates in 34 states and the District of Columbia. The mission of the League is to assist African Americans in the achievement of social and economic equality.

Nation of Islam (NOI)
Provides historical information about the Nation, the speeches of Minister Louis Farrakhan, and online access to the NOI newsletter, the Final Call.

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Journal Articles
Aspects of African American history and culture can be found in all subject disciplines. For a complete list of electronic indexes and databases available in Ramsey Library see Electronic Resources by Subject.

Specific Periodical Databases (UNCA Users only)

Academic Search Premier. Multi-disciplinary database with indexing for more than 8,000 publications and full text for 4,500+ of those titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further. 

America History and Life
Indexes the scholarly literature on American history. Includes abstracts.

Humanities Full Text
Indexes major scholarly journals in the humanities. Includes some full-text.

InfoTrac Academic Onefile
Indexes core periodical titles from many disciplines. Includes some full-text articles.

JSTOR
The scholarly journal archive; provides full text for over 450 journals covering a broad array of disciplines. UNCA collections include Arts and Sciences I, II, III, and IV.

LexisNexis Academic.  News and wire services; company, industry and market information; resources for legal and political research, including case law; medical news; government information.

Project Muse.  Search over 200 full-text journals from major university presses.

Locating Articles in Ramsey Library
Search the online catalog to determine whether a certain journal is located in Ramsey Library or is in the Western North Carolina Library Network (WNCLN).  The catalog record will indicate:

  • whether we have a current print or online subscription
  • which years of the periodical we own
  • the format (bound, microform, online) of older issues.

Obtaining periodicals not owned by Ramsey Library

  • Check the online catalog. If ASU or WCU owns the title, you can request it through ABC Express.   
  • If the title is available in online in full-text, you can print the article from the computer. 
  • If the title is not at UNCA, ASU, or WCU, you may request an article copy through Interlibrary Loan.
  • Detailed information about ABC Express and Interlibrary Loan is available at the Reference Desk.
 
 

This page created and maintained by Anita White-Carter. Last updated 31 October 2007
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